Introduction to C# Programming and Unity

This specialization is intended for beginning programmers who want to learn how to program Unity games using C#. The first course assumes no programming experience, and throughout the 5 courses in the specialization you'll learn how to program in C# and how to use that C# knowledge to program Unity games. The C# and Unity material in the first 4 courses in the specialization is slightly more comprehensive than the content in the first 2 game programming courses at UCCS."Unity" is a trademark or registered trademark of Unity Technologies or its affiliates in the U.S. and elsewhere.The courses i

( 146 Reviews )

Created by: Dr. Tim Chamillard

Produced in 2018

What you will learn

Starting to program: installing Unity and a C# console.
Classes and objects.
Unity 2D basics.
Unity input.

Quality Score

Content Quality

Video Quality

Qualified Instructor

Course Pace

Course Depth & Coverage

Overall Score : 96 / 100

Course Description

unity Awards Best Course Overall

This course is all about starting to learn how to develop video games using the C# programming language and the Unity game engine on Windows or Mac. Why use C# and Unity instead of some other language and game engine? Well, C# is a really good language for learning how to program and then programming professionally. Also, the Unity game engine is very popular with indie game developers; Unity games were downloaded 16,000,000,000 times in 2016! Finally, C# is one of the programming languages you can use in the Unity environment.This course doesn't assume you have any previous programming experience. Don't worry if you've never written code before; we'll start at the very beginning and work our way up to building small games by the end of the course. Throughout the course you'll learn core programming concepts that apply to lots of programming languages, including C#, and you'll also learn how to apply those concepts when you develop games.Computer programming is really fun in general, and programming games is even better!Caution: Beginning (assuming no prior programming knowledge) is not the same as easy (not hard to do). Learning to program IS hard to do, especially since this course is essentially the first half of a freshman-level college course. Meeting the course challenges while you master the material will be rewarding to you, but doing that will require hard work and maybe even a few expletives along the way.Module 1: Write your first C# console application and Unity script and learn how we store data in our programsModule 2: Learn how we use classes and objects to implement our codeModule 3: Learn the basics of Unity 2D games and discover how we make decisions in our codeModule 4: Get and use player input in your Unity gamesModule 5: Complete final peer review and take "Final Exam""Unity" is a trademark or registered trademark of Unity Technologies or its affiliates in the U.S. and elsewhere.This course is an independent work and is not sponsored by, authorized by, or affiliated with Unity Technologies or its affiliates

Time: 5h

Pros

Cons

- The course is free and very beginner friendly. Anyone who has dreamed of developing a video game can start here.
- By focusing on a fun project, the course helps students stay enthusiastic as they begin a journey deep into computer programming and game development.
- Course does a great job of whetting appetites and priming students for further learning.
- The course does not stand alone. It is only an introduction to the 5-course series and will not teach enough by itself.
- Course brushes up against math and traditional coding. While neither are prerequisites, students with absolutely no background in either will have a harder time.
- Acquiring C# console and Unity can prove prohibitive to students who are unprepared.

Instructor Details

Dr. Tim Chamillard

4.8 Rating
146 Reviews

Tim "Dr. T" Chamillard is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS), where he teaches game development classes and runs the Bachelor of Innovation in Game Design and Development program. He also spent 5 years as an indie game developer in a company he started with his two sons. Dr. T spent 6 years teaching at the U.S. Air Force Academy and has been teaching at UCCS since January 2003. He's the recipient of the Outstanding Military Educator in Computer Science award from the Air Force Academy and the College of Engineering and Applied Science Outstanding Teacher of the Year award from UCCS.

Reviews

4.8

146 total reviews

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By John f on 3-Apr-19

None of the HTML links for documentation lead anywhere. This is a distinct problem because all of the assignments reference the help documentations. The zip files do not load properly. i found a go around for this, but it is useless without the help files. The teacher leapfrogs through material teaching you how to use a class but not how to construct them. this is supposed to be a beginner level course, which in a sense it is, that being said however i do not recommend it. The teacher leaves to much out, self promotes a book he wrote..(Which i bought.. big waste of money) and tries to rush through material teaching just enough of the subject mater to allow for limited functionality. if you want to take a beginners level course to truly learn C#, THIS IS NOT IT. Im just glad Coursera has the free week trial period so i did not waste any more money on this course. To qualify my statements i should say i just finished taking Two courses on Coursera learning Python from rice university. All of the necessary foundation work is either taught or provided for with a FUNCTIONAL LINK. I will be looking through coursera for another course/specialization to learn C# from a different provider. I recommend you do the same.

By Hyobin K on 27-Feb-18

I had no coding experience before But I really like games and want to make my ownThis course was a perfect starteven though well there was just one thing I had not expected, I thought I would study basic coding with C# like step by step, but this was not like thatIt's like "we are eager to create something in Unity with C#, so we do this"so I spent a lot of time for referring other materials to make myself understand things clear,which was challenging enough to realize I really like to do coding now, I can't wait to go further in this specialization

By Anthony V on 24-May-18

If you have never done any coding this is going to be a though be rewarding class. The lectures are given in an upbeat and quick tempo, which I enjoyed. I plan to take the next course.

By Tomas on 3-Jul-18

Very well structured, very good balance between "fun" and "musts". Good way of easing into the harder parts. Short and higher number of lectures rather than long and just a few - this is essential.The semi-awkward teacher is awesome. He's just how he should be to grow an affection and a curiosity. He is also really really good at what he does. I really can't think of a way how he could be any better.Although I think it's a pretty steep course in terms of difficulty, which it should be if you actually wanna learn. This takes you straight into programming, forces you to learn things. I took, and finished, other courses that didn't really teach me much on programming as well. Big difference here.I'm already taking the next course from Dr T.On a whole I can't really give it a higher score. However if I were to add something specific for me it would be more exercises on each part, very simple repeat-challenges just to get the habit of the code and syntax you just learnt into the fingers and backbone. Atm I go to w3resource for that.Big thanks.BR, Tomas

By Pavel K on 23-Mar-18

I've enjoyed this course. For anyone with previous development experience this course will be very easy. Also Dr. T is very positive person. Lot's of fun in video quizzes :) Thank you!

By Avinash K on 15-Apr-19

It was a very useful course. The professor taught in a way that even beginners to programming can understand. This is the 1st of 5 courses in this specialisation and I already know how to create characters and move them around using code. I encountered a problem though, Students use the discussion forums to get their peer graded assignments graded and share those links on the forum. The forum is meant for discussions about the course and not to get your assignments graded or use it for personal purposes as such. Due to this, some of our assignments aren't being graded at all (Assignment 4 - ShipBuilding 101 for me). I would really appreciate if coursera took out the option of accessing the sharable link to our solutions or penalised those who use the Discussion Forums for this purpose. Thank You.

By Mikhailova A on 28-Mar-19

The teacher is nice and all in all the course is useful. Nevertheless I wanted to warn those students, that just starting this course. Actually you do need some additional knowledge on Math. The first two weeks were quite easy to understand and if not after watching videos for several times you finally got the idea. But after, it become difficult. It would be easier if the teacher explained everything like at the beginning so you understand what every line of code means. But instead you just get a brief explanation as if you already know the topic. That makes things too complicated. I did the last assignment without any clue of what am I doing and why. Just wanted to finish the course. It would be better, to my mind, if all the explanation was slow so that you understand what are you doing in your code (not just following instructions like "put this line of code here and see the result" I want to understand why I am doing this). This course is not worth 49$. It is easier to buy book on C# and try to learn it like this. That is what I am doing now.

By Mehul T on 28-Jan-19